Bonds of Earth (27 page)

“Good. I’d hate for my art to be inaccessible to the proletariat.”

“Shut up,” Michael growled, leaning in to kiss him hungrily. After a moment, Seward groaned into his mouth and opened beneath him while his arms wrapped around Michael’s back, holding on, holding on.

“About that flat,” John said breathlessly, “would you, will you—”

“Yes,” Michael murmured, lips against John’s ear, “yes,” because no one had asked him before and because now that he had this, he didn’t believe he would ever be able to let go of it.

“Uncle Michael!”

Well, perhaps he could be persuaded for a moment. Releasing Seward hastily, he looked up to see Sarah racing toward him, her velvet dress billowing about her ankles. “You came to see our exhibition!”

He exchanged glances with John, who nodded. “Sarah has three of her paintings in the show as well,” he said proudly. “I think she will become a very famous artist someday, and I want to be able to say that I helped launch her career.”

Michael bent down and handed her the package he’d tucked under his arm. “Hold your Christmas present,” he ordered. Sarah giggled and took it from him, thanking him shyly, and Michael grinned and swept her off her feet and into his arms.

“They’re in the next room,” she said, resting her small hands on his shoulders as though he’d never been away from her. “Would you like to see them?”

“Yes, I’d like that very much,” he told her. Squeezing her tightly to him and looking over her shoulder at John, he repeated, “I’d like that very much.”

15

May 1925

M
ICHAEL
schooled his features to reveal nothing as he pressed his palm to the girl’s forehead. She was a wisp of a thing, perhaps eight or nine years old, and from the heat that greeted Michael’s touch, it was a wonder she hadn’t burned away to ash by now.

He looked up at the anxious parents, their gazes fixed on their ailing daughter. “How long has she had the fever?” he asked. They looked back at him, incomprehension in their eyes, and then turned to one another and had a rapid, whispered conversation in what Michael recognized as Italian. After eleven hours working in Saint Vincent’s woefully understaffed admissions section, he could barely remember his own language, so the words he summoned were clumsy at best. “
Tempo
—ah,
tempo e caldo
—no,
calda
?” he asked, motioning to the girl.

Another whispered conversation, and then the father held up three fingers.

“
Ore
?” Michael asked, dreading the answer already when the man shook his head.

“
Giorni
,” he said. Michael’s expression must have betrayed him—three days of high fever was a great deal more serious than three hours—because the mother’s hands flew to her mouth, not quite bottling the sob that escaped.

Michael spun on his heel and addressed the nearest intern. “Prepare an ice bath as soon as possible,” he instructed, “and find Sister Loretta if she hasn’t gone off shift yet. I need someone who can speak Italian a damn sight better than I can.”

The intern—he was new, and somewhat overwhelmed by all the activity on busy nights—blinked at him for a moment. “Which one should I do first?”

“Which one is more likely to save this girl’s life, Stewart?” Michael asked between gritted teeth.

“Oh, right,” Stewart said, nodding.

“Stewart?”

“Yes, sir?”

“
Move,
” Michael bit out.

“Right!” Stewart said crisply, sprinting off.

Mustering a reassuring smile, Michael turned back to the anxious couple. Taking one of the mother’s hands, he gently wrapped it around the limp hand of her daughter. They nodded at one another in a moment of silent understanding, and then he went in search of Sister Loretta himself.

S
IX
hours later, Michael was finally relieved of his duties by another of the senior residents and, after discussing with him all the particulars of the girl’s case, trudged to the doctors’ lounge to retrieve his jacket. As he started to push the door open, his ears were immediately assaulted by Stewart’s patrician, nasal tones.

“—don’t see why these dagos can’t learn some English,” Stewart was saying, waving a hand at Morgan, another new intern. “I mean, the level of ignorance is appalling. They didn’t even have the sense to bring the girl into a hospital when she became ill.”

Morgan, his back turned to Michael, murmured something too low for Michael to hear through the crack in the door, after which Stewart said, “Well, at any rate, if she dies it won’t be on my conscience. Medical science can only do so much.”

Somehow, even exhausted as he was, Michael managed to shove the door with such force that it hit the stop with a loud
bang
, causing both men to start violently. Before he could manage to think better of it, Michael had stalked across the room and was shoving Stewart back against the wall. Stewart gaped at him like a landed trout, his well-fed face purpling.

“Don’t mix in,” Michael growled at Morgan.

Morgan held up his hands in a placating gesture. “He’s all yours,” he said, stepping back.

Michael looked Stewart right in his watery blue eyes. “Her name,” he said, slowly and deliberately, “is Sofia Andretti. Her father’s name is Paolo. Her mother’s name is Francesca.” He pushed a little harder against Stewart’s chest. “Say their names.”

“I don’t—”

Michael slammed his open palm against the wall beside Stewart’s head, making him flinch. “Say them, goddamn you!”

“S-Sofia An—An—”

“Andretti.”

“Andretti,” Stewart parroted. “P-Paulo. Francesca.”

“Very good,” Michael said. “Perhaps the next time you are tempted to use a foul epithet, you will take five seconds and learn the
names
of the people you are pledged to help.”

Stewart opened his mouth, then wisely clamped it shut again. Michael nodded.

“And as for levels of ignorance,” he continued, almost conversationally, “the Andrettis know something you obviously have failed to grasp. They understand that most of the time, the hospital is a place people like them go to die, because when they get there they encounter doctors who look down their noses at them and, after deciding their consciences are
clear
—Stewart winced—“fail to do every last thing they can to save them.”

“I didn’t mean—” Stewart spluttered. “Of course I would do all I could—”

“Shut up,” Michael snapped. “You are right about one thing: medical science can only do so much. The ice bath we gave her tonight will keep her brain from cooking with the fever, but it’s not a cure, and if she dies, it won’t matter. The only thing that can truly save that girl is her spirit, her will to live. Perhaps a few prayers from her parents will help, who the hell knows. But most of the time, Stewart, we are stumbling around in the dark, and it’s sheer bloody luck that we save anyone at all.”

As Stewart stared at him, Michael finally removed his hand from his chest and stepped back. “It’s not all your fault, I suppose,” he sighed, the exhaustion suddenly slamming back into him. “They convince you you’re a pack of modern gods, striding around the wards with the secret of life and death in your hands.” His gaze flicked over both of them. “You’ll find out soon enough you’re as human as the rest of us.”

And with that, he turned on his heel and left the room as swiftly as he’d come. He was halfway home before he noticed he’d forgotten his damned jacket.

M
ICHAEL
awoke at the sound of the bedroom door creaking on its hinges. He opened his eyes just sufficiently to see John dressed to go out. “John?”

John turned and made a calming gesture with his hand. “I didn’t mean to wake you,” he whispered. “Go back to sleep.”

“Where’re y’goin’?” he slurred, still half-unconscious.

John hesitated, then answered, “To the appointment we talked about the other day.”

Michael blinked at him. “That’s tomorrow.”

John’s expression turned to that mixture of fondness and exasperation that Michael had grown increasingly familiar with since he’d started his residency at Saint Vincent’s. “It’s today, Michael my lad,” he said, walking over to the bed and sitting on the edge. “You slept through Tuesday.”

“Fuck,” Michael sighed. “I promised I’d come along, didn’t I? I’m sorry.”

John shook his head. “Don’t be. You looked terrible when you came in early yesterday morning.”

“And now?”

John smiled and brushed the hair away from his forehead. “Oh, much better. Back to your usual homely self.”

Michael snorted.

“Tell me?” John asked softly, hand still gentle on Michael’s face.

Michael took a calming breath through his nose. It didn’t help. “A girl we admitted on my last shift,” he said. “I believe it’s rheumatic fever.” Another pause. “She’s nine years old.”

“God,” John breathed. “Will she—”

Michael passed a hand over his face. “I don’t know. I have another shift tom—shit, I mean this afternoon—and I’m dreading going back.” He didn’t tell John that he couldn’t stop thinking that she was Edith’s age, that for one horrible second, he’d wished she were Edith, because at least then he’d know what had happened to her—

It had been six months now since he’d known Margaret’s whereabouts. He’d turned the Bowery upside down, and all he’d heard of his sister was that she’d left New York. There was no way to know for certain if that was true, or where she’d gone if it were. None of which he’d told John, of course. John would only want to spend his money—as though he hadn’t spent far too much of it already helping to put Michael through medical school—on a detective who wouldn’t be able to learn anything more than Michael already had. Still, the guilt of the lie tasted sour on top of the worry and the fear for Margaret. Half of his rage at Stewart the other day had been anger at himself, punishing himself for his thoughts and his doubts.

“I can stay,” John said quietly, startling Michael back to the present with a gentle stroke to his hair.

“No, I’m fine,” Michael said, that lie coming easier. “I’d like to get a couple of more hours’ rest before my shift.”

John watched him for a moment longer, then nodded. “All right. Will you try to come next week?”

“I’ll try, though I don’t see why you can’t tell me what these appointments are. You’ve been going every Wednesday for two months.”

“Perhaps because I’m afraid that if I tell you, you won’t agree to come,” John murmured.

Michael frowned. “I don’t understand.”

John blew out a breath. “I’ll be late,” he said. He made to rise from the bed, but Michael’s hand shot out and caught hold of his wrist, stopping him. John looked down at his wrist, then back at Michael.

Michael’s hold loosened, and he stroked a thumb across John’s pulse point. “Please.”

John continued to watch him, gaze searching. “I’ve been going to see an alienist, Michael,” he said finally.

Michael blinked at him, shock rendering him numb. “You’ve been seeing an alienist,” he repeated.

“He’s very good,” John said, then chuckled without mirth. “And very reasonable.”

“You—are you
mad
?” Michael hissed, sitting up.

“Quite probably.”

“For Christ’s sake, do you have any idea what alienists do to us?” Michael snapped, anger suddenly slamming into him broadsides, nearly blinding him. “They try to
convert
us. They brand us as deviants. They help send us to
jail
.”

“This one won’t,” John returned, maddeningly calm.

“And how the hell do you know that?”

“Because he’s
one of us
,” John gritted.

Michael swallowed his retort and stared at him.

“Doctor Collins came highly recommended by a friend,” John continued. “He served in the war, and he’s worked with shell-shock cases. He’s already helped me, and I think he might be able to help you.”

Michael waved a hand, utterly at a loss. “I didn’t realize you were—that it still bothered you.”

“It does,” John conceded quietly. “And if your tossing and turning in bed is any indication, it does you as well.”

Michael couldn’t say that most of his dreams lately had been of Margaret and her children, nightmares in which he ran toward them as they screamed for help and never reached them. “I thought you liked my tossing and turning in bed,” he said instead, laying a hand on John’s thigh.

John looked down at Michael’s hand for a moment, then sighed and enfolded it in his. “One easy thing about you,” he murmured, “is that I always know when we’ve arrived at an impasse.” Raising the hand to his lips, he kissed it fondly and rose to his feet. “Sleep well.”

“You could talk to me,” Michael blurted just as John reached the door.

John paused, back still turned. “No, I can’t,” he said. “Perhaps someday, but for now you’re carrying enough burdens. I refuse to be another one.”

“You’re such a self-sacrificing prick,” Michael snarled, the anger flaring in him again, making him want to lash out, to engender a kindred reaction in John.

At that, John did turn, but his expression only held sadness and concern. Michael balled his hands into fists.